What’s up with the Greens?
Instead of rising up to restore social justice and sanity to New Zealand, the Greens have demonstrated the political perils of being first to the party.
It should be a great time to be the Green Party. Climate Change! Iraq! Inequality! House Prices! The GCSB! The TPP! Trump! There hasn’t been a
Lord of the Rings film in two years! The world is ending, just like they said it would.
Instead of rising up to restore social democracy and sanity, they’ve plateaued. The new plan is to team up with Labour and it guts me.
I’ve been a huge Greens fan since Rod and Jeanette were certified organic. I thought they were on track to overtake Labour, who I assumed would have the dignity to give up due to a general sense of embarrassment. I wanted a Green opposition, tugging on the ponytails of power.
Since then I’ve watched Russel Norman bail for Greenpeace!? He left the inside of Parliament to chain himself to the outside of it. Where did things go stale?
I had a semi-cas’… caj? Cajzh? Semi-casual chit chat with Green MP Julie Anne Genter and I reckon I figured out the main problem with the Greens faster than I figured out how to spell cazh? Caj.
We were talking about the TPPA. It’s confusing. It’s 6000 pages long and was negotiated in secrecy with no input from New Zealand and some input from US corporations. I was torn, like Mike Hosking who was comically confused when he tried to go off prompter on Seven
Sharp: ‘‘It’s good for us! Make no mistake it is good for us. Or is it the secret selling off of our sovereignty!?’’
I turned to the shining philosopher kings we call politicians.
Unfortunately Labour were more confused than I was, torn over what they think, what they think we think, and what they think that we think they think. In the end, two days before it was signed, they completely opposed it, with the exception of some members like Phil Goff who completely supported it. High five for trying.
Meanwhile the Maori Party and the Greens were pathetically absent from the debate leaving two sides: the Government, who crassly labelled any opposition as ‘‘anti-free trade’’, and the ‘‘antifree trade’’ Dr Jane Kelsey, who seemed a little bit odd herself.
I told Julie Anne that the Greens weren’t there for me, and she was offended: the Greens were protesting the TPPA ‘‘two years ago!!’’
I didn’t have the heart to break it to her that while I’m sure the protests were extremely boisterous two years ago, no one noticed or cared. Mainstream New Zealand found out about the complex trade deal and accompanying legal synthesis from the same geniuses who whipped up the flag referendum about a week before it was signed.
That’s when it hit me, the Greens are so far ahead of the rest of us that they can easily be perceived as ineffective and worse, annoying.
Na´ndor Ta´nczos was 10 years too soon on weed, which is ironic. More recently a Greens bill to register foreign trusts was labelled ‘‘barking mad’’ by John Key before it was recommended by his own Shewan Inquiry. Green MPs pointed this out on Twitter but no one likes to hear ‘‘I told you so’’ nerds. You’re not my real dad!
They’re like the opposite of New Zealand First who are populist, reactionary and exploitative. The Greens are elite, intellectual and ethical. If Winston watched Parks
and Rec he would probably quote Tom Haverford: ‘‘I’ve never taken the high road, but I tell other people to. Cause then there’s more room for me on the low road.’’ The Greens need to spend a bit more time on the low road.
Take their current main issue ‘‘Clean Rivers’’, that classic political gold mine. I don’t want red tape stopping me when I’m dumping my old quad bike in the Waikato. Mainstream Kiwis won’t give a crap about rivers until they’re so toxic they’re burning children. Well, middle-class children.
I recently asked a Greens member why they don’t campaign on child poverty and they said they did that last election and it didn’t get cut through. That’s because you’re living in the future! Try it again in 2016 guys, trust me, we’re a bit brain damaged from the drinking and the rugby concussions, we’ll catch up!
Mainstream Kiwis won't give a crap about rivers until they're so toxic they're burning children. Well, middleclass children.